There is No Us in Number One
by SecretEngima
Summary: Destiny is many things: Immutable is not one of them. Izuku was meant to be chosen by a hero. Katsuki was meant to believe in the strength of the undefeated. Hitoshi was meant to struggle onward alone. (Instead they are broken, and reborn from the shards as counterbalances, friends, and brothers). There is no "us" in Number One (but since when have they ever played by the rules?)
1. Chapter 1: Destiny Broken

**So. Still working on my other stories, but this one kinda binge-wrote itself almost and after hitting 8-9 chapters without any sign of stopping, I figured this one would be worth sharing too. To previous readers, hi, I promise I'm still working on my other stuff (finished an AMOSC chap, just need to edit it). To new readers, welcome! Please enjoy the crazy that is my brain. Note that this story will have a Dragon!Deku with a twist, OfA Katsuki (yes, you read that right) and Shinso Hitoshi being the epic deadpan of the cast. Plus Monoma. I have no idea why he showed up, but he's a reassuring side-character somehow so ... yeah. Monoma.**

 **Copyright Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia or any references in this story. The only things I own are my OCs, the plot, and my interpretations of these characters.**

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 **Chapter One: Destiny Broken**

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It was an ordinary day. A **nice** day. A weekend out with his mom, playing in the park —by himself, but that was okay, the other kids would just tease him anyway—, gushing over the newest hero figurines, getting ice cream, and begging his mom to take him to the theater to see the sequel to the cool fantasy dragon movie he liked almost as much as he liked heroes.

Then, somewhere between one happily rambled word and the next, Izuku and his mother became aware of the screaming.

In an instant, one heedlessly turned corner of the street, the world seemed to transform from a pleasant day to a nightmare. People were running, screaming, somewhere nearby another child was crying. His mother immediately clutched his wrist and began dragging him away from what appeared to be the center of the chaos.

She forgot to shield his eyes. She was too busy trying to get them safely away, so there was nothing to stop Izuku from watching as a man —villain, had to be— rushed out of the crowd, laughing and ranting and screaming —something about never being appreciated, something about how if people wanted massive cosmetic surgery so badly he would **give it to them** — as he grabbed some random person in the crowd with both hands. The victim of the villain immediately screamed, skin shifting and splitting, bones warping and cracking as he was forcibly changed from his human shape into something different. Something Other.

Izuku felt bile rush into his mouth as his seven year old mind struggled to comprehend the sheer terror that flooded him. The sheer cruelty of the villain who was lunging for another victim, still ranting about things Izuku didn't understand — _because of course the world was unfair, even Izuku knew that, but that was no reason to_ ** _hurt_** _innocent people who had nothing to do with the unfairness of the world_ —. The crowd was shoving them and bumping them, making it hard for his mother to safely navigate them away, and no matter how much he wanted to look away, Izuku still found himself staring at the villain, wondering desperately when a hero would arrive and save the day — _too late for that one man, too late for the other victims he had gotten to before Izuku saw it…—._

 _Too late for Izuku._

Izuku was still staring when a familiar blond appeared out of the crowd, separated from his mother, lost and disorientated by the screaming mob, fighting to break out of the flow and stumbling into a clear area that was only clear because it was directly in front of the villain everyone was running from.

Izuku saw the villain smile, crazed and bloodshot, black tongue visible as he laughed hysterically. Saw the man stare briefly down at the boy's shirt, as if it was some kind of cosmic inspiration, before he lunged for the confused child. Saw the boy — _his friend, his bully, his role model,_ ** _Kacchan_** _—_ barely manage to dodge out of the way of the first lunge only to trip over the shoes of a previous victim and fall.

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 _It is said that true heroes, the ones who become legends in their own lifetime, are the ones who first discovered their heroism in a time of great peril. The ones who would later say that their bodies moved on their own to save an innocent. Instinctive heroes, who protect because it is in their very_ ** _nature_** _to protect, who rush in without thinking in order to save the day because their very heart demands it._

 _No one ever talks about what that moment of rash, unthinking courage will cost. The price the hero will spend the rest of his life paying._

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Until the day he died, Izuku would never remember how he got loose of his mother's death-grip. All he could remember was watching the horror unfold one moment, then plunging into the flow of the mob the next with the singular thought of his friend's name ringing through his head. The memories that followed were snapshots. Flashes of fighting past legs, barely dodging a trampling set of hooves, shoving and twisting all the while hearing his best friend dodge and scream again and again over the cacophony of the crowd, knowing instinctively that each time Kacchan came just a bit closer to being touched by the fixated villain.

Izuku broke out of the crowd somehow, his feet carrying him _on-on-on_ even before his mind could fully register what instinct had already processed as dangerous and unacceptable. The sight of Kacchan trapped with his back to a wall, hands desperately sparking in an effort to ward off the villain's reaching fingers.

It was the work of adrenaline —of desperation— to weave under the villain's outstretched arms, grab his friend-bully-idol by his shirt, and fling him out of the way just as large hands closed over Izuku's scrawny shoulders.

Izuku's world dissolved into shards of agony and a **burning** that seared all the way down to the marrow of his bones.

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 _People speak often and glowingly of the popular heroes, of the ones who act without thinking, whose very instinct is to_ ** _protect_** _. What they don't know is that most of those heroes do not actually have that instinct naturally. That a lot of the bravest —most dangerous— heroes did not start out with that instinct, but had that instinct imprinted upon them by one singular moment. They are the ones who rush headlong into danger seemingly without fear because the alternative is to stand aside while that moment —the single point in time that shattered their world, broke their perception of reality down and built it anew all in the span of seconds— happened all over again and that is something_ ** _they cannot allow_** _._

 _The moment could be anything. The loss of a parent. The sight of another person crying out in terror. Their first villain attack. Even just a moment where they experienced total and utter shame in themselves over some inability to act, a split second where they did nothing and someone else paid the price for it. Anything could be the trigger, one that the heroes carry for the rest of their lives as a driving force. Hold tight to their hearts and_ ** _remember_** _even as the public lauds them as being instinctive heroes, fearless saviors, and know that they aren't really, not in their own eyes. To those heroes, everything the media proclaims about their heroism is a lie, but the truth is something they will carry to their graves without a word._

 _The truth that they are actually too_ ** _cowardly_** _to risk letting something like The Moment happen ever again, even if preventing it it costs them their lives._

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For Bakugo Katsuki, that moment was when he went from staring death in the face to landing roughly on the pavement from where he'd been thrown to safety by the boy he had bullied relentlessly for years. It was the moment, the eternity in time, when he watched helplessly as Midoriya Izuku — _the boy he had called useless, quirkless, stupid,_ ** _weak_** — took the attack meant for Katsuki and **screamed**. The moment where Izuku's body twisted in on itself, bones cracking and reforming, skin ripping and blackening and stitching itself back together —all wrong, **all wrong** , that wasn't Deku anymore, that was something else— and Katsuki realized somewhere in the back of his mind that the horror happening before his eyes was **all his fault**.

All Might dropped out of the sky literal seconds later, taking out the villain with a single blow that sent wind roaring in every direction, but for once Katsuki couldn't have cared less about the presence of his favorite hero. He was too busy crawling to where Izuku lay in a pool of blood and torn clothes — _too still, far too still, why-didn't-he-move-why-didn't-he-wake-up-?_ —. His hands fluttered tentatively over fever-hot skin — _that wasn't skin anymore, it was too hard and black-green and scaly and his-fault-his-fault_ — and begged Izuku to **wake up** past the lump of horror in his throat.

He didn't see the moment All Might turned and saw the pair of them, the crying boy and the lumpy bundle of iridescent black-green-red _not-right_ that should have been another little boy. Didn't see how his hero's iconic smile briefly dropped into a look of pure horror —pure guilt— before All Might had to work to keep the crowd of slowly calming —and now curious— onlookers away until the ambulance arrived and carted the victims —plus a hysterically sobbing Midoriya Inko and a shaking, in-shock Katsuki— off to the nearest hospital.

Katsuki's mother arrived at some point during Katsuki's hospital stay, hugging him tight and crying on his hair before trying to comfort the unconsolable Inko. Katsuki was barely aware of their presence. He just sat in the waiting room and stared at the far wall, waiting and watching for the glowing sign above the door through which Izuku had been taken to go dark. For news of what was to become of the boy who had saved him — _even when Deku had no reason to, not with how Katsuki had treated him, not at such a cost_ —.

It took hours for the sign to go dark and a doctor to come out to talk to Inko. It took longer before the police figured out the whole story and could tell the two distraught mothers what had happened while a deathly silent boy listened in unnoticed.

Izuku was now one of fifteen victims in a villain attack caused by the illegal, quirk-enhancing drug known as Trigger. The drug caused a massive boost in power of whoever took it at the cost of making them completely irrational and violent. The villain who had attacked them was actually a man who had been dumped by his girlfriend when he had been unable to use his quirk —a minor transfiguration quirk that worked on living things to permanently alter their bodies in some way, but only in little things such as removing moles or changing eye or hair color— to perform a cheaper version of some kind of cosmetic surgery for her.

He had taken the drug in an irrational fit and gone on a rampage, using his suddenly super-charged quirk to completely alter the bodies of his victims into whatever he was thinking of at the time.

Of the fifteen victims, only ten survived the initial transformation process. Of those who survived the transformation, three bled out or died from shock before the ambulance arrived, and two more died en route to the hospital.

Of the five who reached the hospital and were taken in for emergency treatment, only Izuku survived.

When Katsuki was finally allowed to see Deku's unconscious body —poked by what seemed like a million needles and tubes and a specially shaped oxygen mask strapped over his head— through the thick pane of an observation window, he couldn't help but wonder if Deku would have rather been among the ones killed. Because what had been done to him was **permanent**. There was no known quirk that could safely restore his body to its original condition without killing him, and even if anyone dared trust the villain near his one remaining victim, once off the drug, the man's quirk would be too weak to do anything helpful anyway.

The next thought to enter Katsuki's head was the realization that if it hadn't been for Deku, **he** would be the one lying there right now. He would be the one sedated and strapped to a hundred monitors, with no one able to tell his mother if he would still be **himself** when he woke up or if the transformation had destroyed his mind in the process.

The third thought to enter his head was **_Never Again_**. Never Again would someone else have to save Katsuki from something he should have been able to fight off himself. Never Again would Katsuki be the **victim** , waiting for someone else to suffer the price of keeping him safe. Katsuki would be the one to help from now on. **He** would be the one to save the victims, **he** would be the one to beat the villains before they could do things like what had happened to Deku.

And he would start by making sure no one hurt Deku ever again.

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Waking up hurt. The beeping in his ears was far too loud. It pierced his aching skull and seemed to send vibrations right up his throbbing bones. Everything felt strange, off somehow, in a way his sluggish mind couldn't yet pinpoint. It took a solid minute to figure out that he was lying on his belly, with something heavy and awkward pressing down on his back and a mask strapped to his face —the mask didn't feel right, it was too tight and went all the way up to his forehead, almost covering his eyes, but the straps were wrapped around his neck rather than the back of his head—.

He felt his nostrils flare as his attempted groan came out as a simple sigh. Something rustled just to his left —it sounded like fabric?— but Izuku was distracted from the sound when he felt a part of his head shift in the direction of the sound involuntarily and his head wasn't supposed to do that, **why did it do that**? The beeping got faster as his breathing increased, which caused more parts of his head to move and flatten against the rest of his skull —and how did that make any sense? Was he dreaming, Izuku hoped he was dreaming—.

Then there was a shaky hand on the top of his skull —which felt way too close to his forehead somehow—, and his mom's voice was right next to him, shaking with suppressed tears and stress —he instantly felt guilty, what had he done now to make her cry?—, "Izuku…? Baby, can you hear me? Are you … are you awake?"

 _I'm awake,_ was what he tried to say, but his lips felt heavy and wouldn't form the correct shapes and the only thing that came out of his throat was a sleepy, inhuman trill.

On the top of his head, his mother's hand flinched, "Izuku?"

 _Something's wrong. Something's-wrong-what's-wrong-what's-wrong-with-me-?_ His eyes jerked open and everything looked wrong. It was too sharp and too wide, like he could see half the room when he should have only been able to see a third or less. What few colors there were stood out and clashed almost as if they were neon —his mother's hand was too pale, her clothes kept flickering from a moderate but bright green to something else entirely, like an inversion of everything he knew it was supposed to be—. Someone —nurse? They were dressed like a nurse— was forcibly nudging his mother away from him with a loud — _too loud, make it stop_ — mutter of, "Stay back, ma'am. We don't know how he'll react."

His mom clutched her hands together, "But he's my baby-!"

"He might not **know that**. Stand back or I'm going to have to ask you to leave the room."

 _NO! Don't take mom away! Mom!_ His throat convulsed, but words didn't come out, a hoarse, frantic chirp and screech did, like a cat and a hawk all rolled into one. The odd weight on his back jerked and started to flare only to be brought to a sharp halt by a set of straps and Izuku realized with a jolt that he shouldn't be able to feel the straps because his back wasn't touching it, the weights were, so why-?

The nurse stepped closer into his field of vision, her bright purple skin was very distracting, "Izuku-chan? Izuku-chan, can you understand me? Izuku-chan, if you can understand me, I need you to look at me, okay? I need you to focus on me." Obedience managed to win out over panic, if only barely, and instead of trying to look over his shoulder at the mystery weight, he focused his attention on the nurse.

 _What's going on? What happened to me?_ He tried to say, but only a choke whine and trill came out, his tongue moving strangely in his mouth as he tried to speak. He froze, and the nurse kept talking in a soothing voice, "I know you're confused, but it's okay. It's alright. You were involved in an incident with a villain a week ago, but you're going to be okay. Do you understand? Nod if you understand."

Slowly, with his head feeling very weird —if he was lying flat on his stomach, how was he looking at her when his head was level? Shouldn't it be more tilted?— Izuku nodded to the nurse's question, trying to remember the incident she'd just mentioned.

Something in the nurse's shoulders unwound, "Very good. Now, do you know this woman? Nod if you do." Izuku nodded immediately, of course he knew his mother!

Inko's face crumpled with relief and she pushed her way past the nurse to cradle Izuku's face gingerly in her hands —and when had his chin gotten so big she could fit both hands on it without touching his cheeks?—, "Izuku…!"

The nurse shifted so that Izuku could see her better —even though he could already see her just fine—, "Alright. I'm going to remove the oxygen mask, Izuku-chan. I need you to stay still and calm, alright?" He managed to bob a nod. Her shoulder nudged Inko gently to one side as her hands reached out and rested against his neck with a touch so light he could barely feel it. She gently unwound the mask and lifted it free of his face.

His sense of smell hit him like a slap to the face and he buried his head in his hands to try to protect his nose. The disinfectant that always made his nose itch now **burned** , and somewhere nearby something smelled sour in a way that shouted _sad-worried-angry-_ ** _sad-worried_** to some part of Izuku's brain. His mother fluttered, and the nurse said something about enhanced senses and how they would have to move him to an animal-quirk orientated section of the hospital once it was safe to do so.

 _Animal-quirk? I don't have a quirk…_ his eyes drifted open in grudging curiosity-

And he found himself staring down at hands that **weren't hands**.

 _Those are paws. Those are_ ** _scaly_** _paws. Those can't be_ ** _mine_** _can they?_ His head jerked out of his hands — _paws, those were paws how-how-how—_ and he stared down at them in a horrified sort of fascination. He tried to wiggle his fingers, the long black claws wiggled instead. He rotated his palms, the pad of the paws came into view. The nurse was talking and he could hear her, but the words washed over him without meaning as he hastily examined his body, a high, rolling trill emerging from his throat in place of the frantic muttering he usually did. His arms were black, scaly legs, parts of his head kept moving frantically back and forth — _ears? He needed a mirror—_. A twist of his head to look over his shoulder revealed a long, black-green scaled body with a pair of huge, leathery wings quivering against the bed restraints and an agitated lashing tail he could feel brushing over the sheets and smacking against the bed rails.

 _This can't be my body-what-_ ** _happened-to-my-BODY_** \- "Izuku!" His mother was suddenly there, holding his face — _muzzle_ — in both hands, looking deep into his eyes as she took exaggerated, shaky breaths and told him to breathe with her, "Just breathe, Izuku, it's going to be okay, just breathe. In, out, in, out. That's it … that's it."

His breathing hitched and his shoulders — _wings, giant bat wings—_ hunched against the restraints, _"Mom…"_ the plea was a mournful moan and despite the familiar tickles of a panic attack in the back of his head, his eyes stayed wide and dry — _even though, just this once, he wanted so badly to cry and cry and cry_ —. His mother's green eyes were wobbling with tears, but she kept smiling, kept breathing with him until he felt like the world wasn't about to shatter apart — _yet_ — and the nurse was able to approach with an apologetic expression, an explanation, and a mirror.

She told him about the villain attack — _he remembered that, remembered fear and horror and Kacchan in danger and then pain-pain-_ ** _pain_** _—_. She explained how he'd been taken to the hospital after the villain had used his quirk on Izuku. She explained that there was nothing they could do to reverse this, but it would be alright anyway because there were programs and people specially designed and trained to help people with animal-based mutation quirks and those things would work for him too. She told him not to panic.

Several minutes later, Izuku stared at the stranger in the mirror — _the creature, the monster_ — and tried to wrap his brain around the fact that the thing staring back at him wasn't his own face that he'd known all his life, but a little black-green **Night Fury** with large, terrified green eyes and oversized ear flaps twitching spasmodically against it's skull.

A few things clicked slowly into place.

The villain had a quirk that transfigured people according to what he was thinking about.

Kacchan had been wearing a t-shirt with the main dragon of the new fantasy movie on it — _Toothless, a Night Fury_ —.

 **Izuku was a Night Fury now**.

His eyes rolled up into his head and he fainted dead away.


	2. Chapter 2: Lights in the Dark

**I seem to be on a roll with my updates today, so I figured I'd update this one too. Hopefully I'll get Empyrean and AUW updated soon too, but no promises.**

 **Author's Note: Hope everybody enjoys the update! I know it's pretty ... angsty right now, but it'll get better. Eventually.**

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 **Chapter Two: Lights In the Dark**

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It took six months of physical and emotional therapy to get Izuku in any kind of condition to leave the safety of the private hospital ward. It took eight months before he was in any condition to do more than go from his home back to the hospital for his check-ups, therapies, and adjusted diet plans — _which mostly consisted of going onto a full milk, meat, and sushi diet. Wheat, vegetable, and fruit products made him throw up violently, cheese gummed up in his mouth and peanut butter had been a disaster that required an ambulance and therapy for his hysterical mother_ —.

Everything that had once been simple was now hard to impossible. Walking? Four legs were stupidly hard to coordinate, his tail kept moving without his conscious consent and knocking into things —or people—, and his wings kept catching on things when he forgot to take them into account —like doorways, he **hated** doorways with a passion now—.

Writing? Impossible with a pencil or a pen or any other conventional writing utensil. He had no thumbs now, his jaws were too strong to keep from breaking things, and unless he was incredibly careful, his claws went straight through paper —and any surface that wasn't two-inch-thick steel if he got frustrated—. He was learning to dip one claw into ink and write that way, but the ink kept spilling and his claw-writing was mostly illegible. The less said about trying to use conventional dishes, cups, and utensils the better.

Talking? Genuinely impossible without a very uncomfortable collar-style vocoder clamped over his throat. Every time he tried to speak without it, all that came out were warbles and hisses and screeches. He had to learn think-speech now, a way of focusing his thoughts so that the nerve-readers in the collar picked it up and transmitted the words with its synthesized voice —not his voice, this was all monotone and blank, the only variation was the volume—. Oh, and his **teeth** kept retracting whenever he was concentrating too hard on something —a distracting and unnerving feeling—, then springing out and biting his tongue when he got too frustrated —which was often—.

He was pulled out of school indefinitely, none of his clothes fit anymore —and who made clothes for night furies?—, he couldn't even give himself a bath without help —unless he wanted to give in to the newfound instinct to lick himself which was just- no. Just no—. He knew the doctors had repeatedly recommended moving to a bigger house with a backyard he could exercise in, or at least a larger apartment, but his mother was already having trouble with the medical bills for his rehab, there was no way she could afford a new place.

Izuku hated it. Hated his new, clumsy body, hated the way he could smell sadness clinging to his mother all the time now, hated that he was so **useless** in this form, hated **himself** for not being able to fix it-.

The downward spiral of his thoughts might have gone to truly dark places indeed if it hadn't been for Kacchan.

About two weeks after he'd been allowed to bumble around the apartment rather than be stuck in the animal-quirk ward of the hospital, Kacchan had appeared at the door, carrying literal months worth of homework and a stack of jumbo-sized pet dishes so that Izuku could stop breaking plates when trying to eat or drink anything.

He wouldn't look Izuku in the eye for a very long time. But after the initial first arrival, he showed up outside the Midoriyas' door without fail every day after school or early in the morning on weekends. He went with them to Izuku's hospital/therapy visits and stayed glued to Izuku's side whenever he could, talking to him in an oddly quiet but still gruff tone and listening to Izuku —trying to **understand** Izuku— even before Izuku got his think-speech collar or during the times when he couldn't stand to wear it.

But perhaps the biggest thing Kacchan did for him, the most important, was that he **believed** in Izuku. Izuku's mother never wanted him to risk anything, never wanted him to push himself or do something that might lead to potentially hurting himself. His therapists insisted he never stray from their plans for fear of further damage, told him straight to his face — _muzzle now, he supposed_ — that even if he did everything they told him to, he would never again be able to do certain things he'd done while having a human body.

But Kacchan was different. If Izuku wanted to learn something, Kacchan sat down with him and worked out how to do it. If Izuku wanted to reclaim a skill he'd had as a person like playing video games or running through the apartment without falling flat on his snout, Kacchan sacrificed his collection of game controllers or chased Izuku in a demented game of tag whenever Inko was shopping for groceries and couldn't stop them. Kacchan **pushed** Izuku, refused to let him accept the limits set by the therapists and Izuku's loving but overprotective mother. He forced Izuku out of his depressed fog of "can't's" and "used-to-be's" and made him find workarounds and new abilities.

Izuku wanted to finally use his wings and fly like Toothless did in the movies? Kacchan smuggled him out to the park and had him practice jumping off the jungle gym. Izuku thought he couldn't open doors with round doorknobs anymore? Kacchan made him practice with his teeth and paws until he **could** —even if it almost always left toothmarks in the knob afterward—. Izuku wanted to see if he could eat a raw fish, bones and all, like in the movies? Kacchan went down to the fish-market, brought back a fresh salmon, and pitched it at Izuku's face with a loud "Think fast!" And cheered for Izuku when instinct had him snapping it up and swallowing it in two bites without difficulty.

Kacchan was still bad-tempered. There was still a lot of yelling and sparking palms when angry or frustrated —which was a lot—. There were still times when Kacchan pushed too far and insisted Izuku try something again even when Izuku genuinely couldn't do it. But no matter how angry he got —how many screaming fights they had, because Izuku's stress was too high and Kacchan's temper too short—, Kacchan came back. And once they figured out there was something Izuku genuinely couldn't and would never be able to do, then Kacchan set about making a new workaround, or even **becoming** that workaround —writing down Izuku's answers on his homework for him, googling stuff about bats and birds since Izuku would only break the keys, turning on the TV for him so that they could watch movies together—.

He also defended Izuku after Inko reluctantly let Izuku out of the house to play in the park or go back to school. The kids whom Kacchan had once led in bullying were now cowed and driven off at the slightest hint of mean teasing. And after Izuku got hurt defending the other classmates the bullies turned on —being just a bit bigger than a St. Bernard and equipped with teeth, claws, and budding fireballs made him no joke in a fight, but he was still too inexperienced and prone to hesitating— Kacchan began defending the other kids too.

They went everywhere together, exploring and testing and struggling, but everything they did, it was always as a pair. Kacchan helped Izuku up whenever he fell down and, somewhere along the way, began to let Izuku do the same — _a spread wing over blond hair during a surprise rain shower, a flat head catching Kacchan by the midriff after a slip in return for calloused fingers writing down all the hero theories Izuku couldn't and a proud smile when Izuku finally learned to fly_ —.

Izuku had always admired Kacchan, but now Kacchan became Izuku's hero, even more than All Might was.

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Changing himself was hard. It was painful and made him angry. He hadn't wanted to go see Deku after he got back from the hospital at last —hadn't wanted to see what his own weakness had wrought, his failure—. He'd procrastinated on it for two weeks before finally sucking it up —because he'd promised Never Again and he'd **meant it** — and hauling himself over to Deku's apartment with all of Deku's missed homework and the biggest dog dishes he'd been able to buy —because Toothless didn't have fingers to hold utensils with so Deku probably didn't either—.

And then he'd made himself go the next day, and the next, and the next, until eventually it became a habit and he stopped fighting with himself over getting up and preparing to deal with a cranky, broken-hearted dragon.

That didn't mean it wasn't hard. Oh no, it was hard. Almost impossibly so. Katsuki had a temper and was very used to pushing Deku around —and wasn't that a shameful thought even years later—. He was used to not listening to Deku even when the other boy had been able to speak. Plus, Deku had stress and anger he couldn't release because his go-to stress relief method —crying— wasn't an option anymore —because apparently Night Furies could scream and sob all they wanted, but no tears would ever fall—. Those first few weeks were mostly spent with Katsuki accidentally pushing Deku too far and Deku taking out his stress by screaming wordless hatred at him until Katsuki stormed out of the apartment only to make himself come back the next day.

At first, the only thing keeping him coming back was guilt and sheer stubbornness that managed to override his own aching heart and the tears that soaked silently into his pillow every night.

It might have reached a bad breaking point if Katsuki hadn't been flipping through the TV channels for Deku on one of their rare non-combative days and stumbled across a documentary of a man who worked with abused animals. They'd watched for a couple minutes before Deku had nudged him to change the channel in favor of something with heroes on it, but Katsuki remembered the part of the interview he'd heard.

 _"_ _After everything they've been through, you can't expect them to be normal at first. They aren't going to trust you, they aren't going to let you pet them or move fast around them. They're going to be scared and it's going to take a long time for them to get over that. One of the most important things to remember is that to build trust, the communication has to go both ways. Yeah, they've gotta listen to you, but you've got to listen to them too. Watch their body language, listen to what noises they're making. They'll_ ** _tell_** _you when you're pushing too far, or going too fast. You just have to pay attention. You gotta go slow, speak soft, stay firm, be patient, and_ ** _listen_** _."_

Katsuki decided to try it.

He forced himself to shut up more often, made himself watch every inch of Deku's new body, trying to memorize every twitch and what it might mean. He tried —and failed a lot at first— to not shout when Deku wanted something and Katsuki didn't know what it was. He still pushed Deku around, but now he started trying to push Deku into doing more than just lying around whimpering softly. He provoked Deku into games, or made Deku try something stupidly simple he wasn't able to do anymore —while Inko was out grocery shopping, because she hovered too much—. Deku began to pick himself up, he began to learn how to live again.

And slowly, painfully slowly, Katsuki learned too.

He learned to pay attention to the cant of black wings, the flicker of ear flaps and tail, the pitch of Deku's warbles and grunts. It was a language with no school to teach him other than a broken-hearted boy who'd lost his world. It took **patience** , more than Katsuki had ever thought he'd possessed, but he had never given up on learning a new skill before and he wouldn't give up on this. And along the way, Katsuki found himself learning other things too.

When he watched Deku finally reclaim a skill — _opening doors, navigating a room without knocking everything over, playing video games without puncturing the controller_ — he learned to be proud of someone else's accomplishments. When he saw Deku pick himself up, sad but determined, after realizing that there were some things he would never reclaim, he learned to be sad for someone else's pain. When Deku began going to school again, Katsuki saw the looks on the bullies faces — _a look that his face would have shared not that long ago_ — and learned what it meant to drive a threat away rather than **be** the threat, even if it meant getting in trouble with his parents. When he saw Deku — _timid, shy, introverted, courageous Deku_ — hurl himself into the fray to defend someone who had never treated Deku very well just because they were now the ones being bullied —and Deku knew so intimately well how that felt—, he learned that he couldn't be picky about who he saved. It was all or nothing.

Patience, empathy, honor, compassion.

Things he'd never really thought about before. Didn't think of even now in those terms, but learned nonetheless. The things he might never have learned —or at least, not for a very long time— if he hadn't first tried them on Deku to make up for what had happened.

At first he **only** did them for Deku, or to others when Deku was there — _because Deku inevitably did it first and Katsuki refused to let Deku get into trouble without him_ —. Then one day he snatched an inattentive little kid out of the street before a car could hit her while on his way to Deku's apartment and realized that he'd just pulled a Deku. On instinct. And the look the little girl gave him, the look the **parents** and bystanders gave him…

It was different from how other people usually looked at him — _wary respect and poorly hidden fear or jealousy—_. It was a glow, a light of awe and gratitude in their eyes and smiles, like he was some kind of-.

Like he was some kind of hero. Rather than someone more powerful than them to be appeased and catered to.

It shook him to his core. The realization that he, the boy who had once declared he would be Number One, had never actually been looked at that way. Had never done anything to earn that light — _that trust, like his own voice, his own face in the mirror as he cheered that no matter what happened, All Might would always win in the end before the Incident changed his cheers to silence and his smile to a blank mask_ — in another's gaze.

He found himself sitting down very hard on the pavement hours later while on his way home after helping Deku fly through a makeshift obstacle course around the park when he realized that he was wrong. He **had** been looked at that way before. He'd been stared at with those admiring, trusting eyes **for years**.

Those were Deku's eyes. Even before the Incident, even before Katsuki forced himself to stop yelling long enough to learn what Deku wanted —what he needed—. Even when Katsuki had kept pushing him around and hitting him and mocking him — _because he'd thought Deku was doing the same, he'd thought Deku looked down on him, thought he was just a loud idiot and that Katsuki had to prove him wrong_ —, **that** had been what was really shining in those big green eyes.

Admiration.

Awe.

 **Trust**.

 **.**

 **.**

 _"_ _You're amazing, Kacchan!" Not his quirk —not_ ** _just_** _his quirk like everyone else focused on, like everyone else simpered—, but him._ ** _Just_** _him._

 **.**

 **.**

 _Delighted laughter after he showed off some minor trick, "Wow, Kacchan! That was so cool!"_

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _Footsteps scampering behind him, always trying to catch up even though Katsuki never slowed down, "Wait up, Kacchan!"_

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _A flash of a bright sunshine smile beside him, no longer cowering at the dark of the park's forest because Katsuki was by his side, "When you become a pro hero, can I be your sidekick, Kacchan?"_

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _A tiny black form —warped and wrong-wrong-wrong— curled on the pavement, too hot and scaly to the touch while blood-blood-blood seeped into his pants and coated his desperately shaking hands while a voice in the back of his head screamed,_ "My fault would have been me-should-have-been- **me-MY-FAULT-** "

 **.**

 **.**

Katsuki barely made it to the nearest trashcan before he was violently sick.

He'd been blind. So f*ing **blind**.

And he decided, after stumbling home in a daze with a sour taste in the back of his throat for more than one reason, that he was going to make up for it even if it killed him. He didn't think he could be a hero — _wasn't really sure those existed, not anymore—_. Didn't think he **wanted** to be one after what had happened with All Might — _All Might who always won, All Might who felt no fear, All Might who had been just a few seconds too late the one time it mattered most—._ But … he had to try. He might never be a real hero — _if those existed, if it wasn't all just lies people built to feel safe_ — but he was going to do his best to be the person — _hero?_ — that Deku somehow thought he was.

And since he didn't know how to be that person yet, he'd just have to do what he'd already learned for now. He would just … expand it to other people too.

So he did.

He was still terrible at it — _temper too short, voice too loud, words too blunt_ —, but his actions changed, and that was what counted in the end. He started off with little things, like not waiting for Deku to jump into the fray to help the other kids at school when they were being pushed around. Or helping a couple of littler kids get their ball safely out of a tree. Running errands or doing chores for the old couple down the street who were getting too arthritic to do it themselves. Volunteering at the local animal shelter — _one of the few self imposed tasks he enjoyed and only one he was wildly successful at, the other workers thought he had some kind of animal communication quirk for a very long time because of his skill at listening to body language—._

Every step of the way, when he kept fumbling and failing and losing his temper — _with only his bullheaded determination making him pick himself up and try again_ —, he would ask himself two questions over and over. Two questions that always made him dust himself off and try again. But instead of his old childhood question, "What would All Might do?" — _which was win no matter what, which was be_ ** _too late_** —, he asked himself, "What would Deku do? What would Deku want **me** to do?" — _which was be patient, stand firm, listen,_ ** _be kind_** —.

And so he did.

And so he **changed**.

.

* * *

 **Review Response: Dear Dragon Lord Draco, hello! Not ... not really? I mean, to be a crossover it at least has to have the characters exist right? HTTYD is a franchise in this story that Deku and Kacchan were fans of as kids. But I guess if you want to look at it that way (shrugs). Glad you liked it, I hope you enjoyed the latest chapter! OfA is short for One for All. Mostly because it gets a bit bothersome to write out the full title all the time in author's notes and stuff.**

 **Dear Frolicks for Fun, greetings! Well thank you for giving it a try! I'm glad you liked it and I hope you enjoyed the update!**

 **Dear StrangeLady1331, hi there! Happy to hear it! I hope this chapter answered at least a few of your questions, but to answer one of them, Deku's going to grow as big as Toothless, though for now he's only little-ish. The size of a large dog right now. I'm going to have so much fun with Kacchan's character arc. SO MUCH fun (snickers).**

 **Dear LittleWolf1991, hello! Well thank you! Yeah, he'll work through it eventually. And hey, he has a quirk now!**

 **Dear wolfsrainrules, hi! (laughs) Well good! Because this is all your fault™. And yes, he's gonna be the Best Boy™. All of them are.**

 **Dear RedWolf Lover, hey there! At least I'm not boring, right? XD**

 **Dear Verrath, hello! Well thank you! I hope you enjoyed the update!**


	3. Interlude: First Flight

**Alright! Back with a new chapter (if a short one). This was inspired by wolfsrainrules, because she asked me what Izuku's and Katsuki's first flight was gonna be like and I (foolishly) admitted I hadn't considered it and ... well. Here we are. Hope you enjoy it! Feel free to listen to either Romantic Flight or Flying Theme from the HTTYD movie while reading, because that's what I wrote this to (that and Patrik Pietschmann's piano cover of Oogway Ascends because it's perfect for quiet, meditative scenes).**

 **Review Response: Dear Guest, hi! Well thank you, and of course he survives! Wouldn't be much of a story if he didn't. I don't think the series has ever clarified if mutant type quirks are always born that way or not, so I assume it varies depending on individual. I know that Mic was born with his loud voice quirk, but Kirishima developed it later and both of those quirks have physical aspects to them so... yeah. Not sure which is more horrifying to think about, honestly. Probably the "get it later" one because ouch.**

 **Dear Guest, hello there! (Dragon!Deku happily cuddles back with purring while Katsuki just scowls a quiet, blushing scowl). Glad you enjoyed!**

 **Author's Note: So. Still working on the other stories (hi Trypticon, please go away AoT titans) and I'm declaring Ballad officially stuck for the moment (I'll keep working on it I promise). But in the meantime, have a nice fluffy interlude to pick up your day!**

* * *

 **Interlude: First Flight**

 **(Takes place around the age of ten)**

.

"Deku." Izuku's ears swiveled in the direction of his friend's voice and he raised his head with a questioning noise. Kacchan was leaning against Izuku's side, both of them relaxing on the grass in the park after another successful improvised obstacle course for Izuku's flying training. The blond looked thoughtfully from Izuku to the sky, then down at the grass with an almost shy cant to his shoulders, "What's it like? Flying, I mean." Kacchan's voice as he asked was a little too loud for how subdued he sounded —after the incident with Kacchan's quirk and another kid's prank had required a trip to the doctor, Kacchan's ability to regulate his volume had been iffy. They were still waiting for Kacchan's hearing aids to be made—.

Izuku tilted his head and considered the question. How **did** someone describe what it was like to fly? Izuku chuffed and rattle-tapped his claws on the ground in the signs they'd been learning off and on so Izuku didn't need his vocoder all the time —though they'd been a lot more serious about studying it since Kacchan's Incident—, _"It's amazing. And beautiful. And freeing. It's exciting to fly fast, but when I'm up high and flying slow I just feel … quiet."_

"Quiet, huh?" Kacchan looked up from Izuku's claws and stared at the clouds instead. There was a flash of curiosity and longing on his friend's face, so deep and aching that it made Izuku hurt inside. Izuku was standing before he could think better of it, excited warbles spilling from his throat as he bounded around in circles, trying to convey his thoughts without his vocoder —they'd left it at home, it was just so uncomfortable and Kacchan was so good at understanding him anyway—.

Kacchan watched him in confusion until Izuku stopped and gestured emphatically from Kacchan to his back, even going so far as to gently grab Kacchan's wrist in his toothless jaws and drag it over to rest on Izuku's oversized shirt. Kacchan stared, red eyes going wide as he breathed, "You … you want to take me flying? You want me to **ride you**? Is that- is that okay-?"

Izuku cooed, _yes-yes-for-you-for-you_ as he nodded so hard his ears flapped and then huddled low on the ground so that Kacchan would be able to clamber on —Izuku was getting taller every year and his shoulder was at Kacchan's eye level when they were both standing—. Kacchan hesitated, then carefully gripped the back of Izuku's shirt and heaved himself onto his friend's back. There was much yelping and cursing as Kacchan tried to crawl past Izuku's wings and get settled on Izuku's shoulders, but once he was finally there, he gripped Izuku's shirt tight, clamped his legs-.

And promptly tumbled straight off Izuku's back when the latter launched into the air too fast and the fabric of his shirt gave way under the conflict of Kacchan's weight and death grip versus Izuku's speed and sudden altitude.

Clearly, some forethought and strategy were required for this project.

The next two weeks saw Izuku and Kacchan huddled in Izuku's bedroom, clumsily sketching out ideas and figuring out how much allowance it would take to get something strong enough to work as a harness —without telling their parents because they could just imagine how badly they would react—. Leather was out of the question. The real stuff was far too expensive and hard to work with, and neither of them could sew to save their lives.

In the end they settled for sneakily collecting metal clips and nylon rope from various malls and hardware stores when their parents weren't looking. After many, many internet searches that ranged from "rope harness" and "diy night fury harness" to "pro hero rescue 101 how to rig a harness for a victim" and just as many failed attempts to tie and buckle everything properly —Kacchan had bruises on his back from how often he fell off Izuku's back while testing their harness on the park jungle gym—, they had their safety harness.

They snuck out to try it one early Saturday morning. So early the sun was only just coming up and there was still a bit of mist everywhere from the previous day's rain. They had no saddle, so the harness was tied over Izuku's shirt, under his belly and then around his chest and his shoulders before looping up to tie around Kacchan in a similar manner to keep Kacchan from falling off. They had also taken the biggest dog collar they could find and buckled it around Izuku's neck on its loosest hole so that Kacchan had something to hold on to that wasn't an easily ripped All Might shirt.

They had figured out that starting from flat ground was a bad idea. The sudden leap upward kept knocking Kacchan loose and if the harness didn't fail and dump him on the ground, Izuku then had to deal with flying despite Kacchan's weight sliding all over his back and wings. Starting from too shallow of a height, like the jungle gym, caused problems as well, because it took too much flapping to stay airborne **and** build momentum with Kacchan's extra weight. The jolting motion of trying —and failing— had dislodged Kacchan several times during their tests.

So instead, they snuck up to the very top of Izuku's apartment complex —picking the lock of the fire escape that led to the roof on the way because Kacchan was slowly learning vast array of maybe illegal life skills in his quest to be the most prepared person ever—.

The apartment wasn't the tallest building in the neighborhood, but it was a good six-seven stories tall counting the ground floor and it was the most easily accessible one for them to reach without being noticed. Besides, Izuku figured he that would be plenty extra height to get a good head start on flying, since really all he needed was enough clearance to get a running start with Kacchan's extra weight on his back —which they'd been acclimating to by having Kacchan ride on his back as he ran around the backyard—.

Once they were finally on the roof, Kacchan on his back and rope harness triple-checked —it **wouldn't** fail this time they'd tested this setup repeatedly— … they both hesitated. It was … it was a long way down from the top of the apartment building, and while Izuku **had** flown higher than that when practicing and playing, he'd never done it with a passenger —never done **any** real flying with a passenger, the test glides in the park didn't count and oh maybe this was a terrible idea—. He'd also never started off from this height, always gradually climbed higher and higher from a ground or near-ground position.

Kacchan's fingers felt almost chilly against his scales, knuckles digging into the collar they'd wrapped around his neck in place of his vocoder so that Kacchan had something to hold onto. Izuku could feel Kacchan's hands shaking slightly against his neck and, for a moment, Izuku thought about asking if Kacchan wanted to just turn around and go back inside. Forget all about going on a flight.

Then Kacchan's hands tightened even further and his friend shifted to hunch low over Izuku's neck, feet pressed tight in the makeshift rope loops that served as stirrups. Izuku took a deep breath, smelled Kacchan's flickers of _fear-desire-determination_ in the chill morning air, and braced his feet to run. _"Hold on,"_ warbled Izuku softly, a deep croon that only the two of them could understand.

Izuku breathed deep. Took off at a sprint before either of them could think better of it. The edge of the roof rushed closer-closer-closer- and in that split second Izuku was half in the air, half on the ground with his back paws and tail still touching concrete, the world crystalized, focused, burned with _fear-doubt-stop-stop-_ ** _stop-_** that **screamed** at Izuku's senses the same way his race toward the villain to save Kacchan should have but hadn't. His wings faltered, tightened against his sides in a gut-wrenchingly **human** reaction to doing something so utterly stupid and dangerous.

The ground rushed at them and Kacchan screamed, high and terrified as the moment passed and they were falling-.

The thing in Izuku's head that he didn't like to acknowledge, the part that wasn't human but was night fury and wild and **dragon** took over and his wings snapped open, spread to the limit of his burning muscles to catch the wind as Izuku's back bent away from the ground and toward the sky Kacchan wanted so badly to experience for himself.

Two flaps to recover, a rattle of leaves as Izuku's legs brushed the tops of the trees lining the street, and they were off, rushing down the street at a breakneck speed while Kacchan huddled against his back and the rope harness pulled almost painfully tight against Izuku's chest. Over the snap of the wind and the yelp of surprised early morning risers down below, Izuku could hear his best friend's breath coming quick and fast, pants of fear and adrenaline rather than joy. With a soft croon that was more to himself than anyone, Izuku began angling upward. Kacchan had wanted to know the **joy** of the sky, not its terror, and Izuku was going to **show him that**.

It was the least he could do for his hero. His best friend.

 **.**

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 **.**

Everything was too fast, too bright. A dash of colors and adrenaline and muffled sound that probably would have been thunder in his ears if his ears hadn't been- well- damaged. Katsuki clung to the collar and the rope harness with all his strength. Too terrified to scream again, too terrified to do more than cling and shake and **pray** as Izuku caught himself and the world became a rush of wind and blurring motion in Katsuki's peripheral vision.

Oh he shouldn't have asked for this. Why had he asked for this, he didn't have wings he belonged on the f*ing **ground** not up here where everything was terrifying and he wanted down he wanted his mom-dad-someone-Deku- **help-Deku-.**

 _"_ _Kacchan."_ Not words, not anything he could hear. A vibration in his fingers and legs that went to his very bones, one he only knew from years spent listening and memorizing, even before that accident at school had turned the world's sounds into a jumbled mess of underwater mumbling and far-off blurry echoes. Katsuki opened his eyes on instinct —because he needed to see Deku to understand him, even more so now than before—. Deku's ear flaps brushed his downturned face, and the rumble shifted in Katsuki's bones, _"Look. Kacchan,_ ** _look_** _."_

Katsuki didn't want to look, but he'd literally asked for this, he had agreed to this idea and he wasn't a coward so he had at least look before asking Deku to take him back down to the safety of the ground.

He looked up.

And stopped breathing.

They were much, much higher up than the apartment building, easily as high as some of the super high rises in the main city. Everything around them was pale blue and ripples of orange-pink-purple as the sun finally cleared the horizon but was still low enough to set the clouds on fire. The air was cold against his face as it tugged his hair and clothes and everything he knew —the park, the school, the streets, the city— was laid out below him like someone had taken a giant carpet of a map and unrolled it at his feet.

He finally sucked in a breath of cold-cold air as he looked all around and realized- realized-.

The world was so **quiet**.

Not in the frustrating way it had been the last week or so, where there was noise and he **knew** there was noise but couldn't make it out no matter how hard he tried unless the noise was horribly loud. Not in the way it was at night when he lay awake staring at the ceiling, trying not to be eaten alive by the monstrous, nightmarish guilt squirming in his guts after waking up from another dream of That Day.

This was a good quiet. This was the quiet of the wind tugging all his nightmares away. This was the quiet of the world as it breathed and whispered, _"Look. Look at me. Look at all that I am and will be,"_ in a way that only people touching the sky could understand or hear no matter how deaf they now were to human words and ordinary sounds. This was the quiet of being **alive** in a moment so bright and crystal perfect nothing could catch it even as his stomach swooped in joy and fear both before fear was snatched away by the chilly kiss of the wind and there was only wonder left behind.

This was the quiet of opening his eyes and realizing he was **free**.

Katsuki's fingers slowly unwound from Deku's collar, shakily slid free and reached up with one hand into the open air. The wind batted at his fingers, made his hand bob softly up and down to the occasional beat of Deku's wings. Deku drifted even higher, his wings knifing through a herd of wispy clouds and Katsuki felt rather than heard the breathless laugh that bubbled from his own throat as his outstretched fingers slid through the tail of the clouds. _I'm touching the sky._

He looked up and around, his other arm slowly rising to let the wind bat it gently back and forth, _I'm touching the sky,_ whispered through his mind again, so soft he almost couldn't hear his own thoughts.

He was touching the sky.

His chest hitched slightly, reverent in the quiet of the sky as he tilted his head back and filled his lungs with the chilly, echoing, all-accepting quiet. For a moment, everything disappeared. His guilt, his anger, his parent's worry as they talked about his hearing aids at just the wrong tone for him to actually understand what they were saying beyond the general topic. Everything was just … gone. Far away and far below, lost somewhere amid the tiny trees and little grids of buildings as Deku drifted higher and higher into the hush.

Katsuki felt like laughing. He felt like crying. He felt like **screaming** his wonder-joy-awe into the sky because he knew the wind would snatch it away in an instant and restore the quiet that made him feel like he was floating and untouchable.

Then he lowered his hands back to Deku's collar, wrapped his fingers firmly around it as he pushed his feet deeper into the rope loop stirrups and lowered himself over Deku's neck like Hiccup always did with Toothless, "Show me more," he whisper-shouted to his best friend, "I want to **fly** , Deku, let's **fly**."

Deku's body vibrated with a joyous noise of victory and the occasional thump of his wings shifted to a blur of motion as they surged forward, up and over and around and then down-down-down so fast Katsuki could barely see past his squinting eyelids or feel his face past the bite of the wind. Melding to Deku's rhythm, to the lean and tilt and bob of the black-green scales beneath him was like learning to breathe again, necessary and exhilarating and so, so **natural** once he figured it out. Once he figured out how far to lean to stay balanced when Deku banked, when to throw his weight back against the makeshift stirrups and the collar when Deku dived and then pulled up again. When to lean and compensate and when to just press so close to his friend's back that he could feel his friend's massive heartbeat pounding through his own ribcage like a second pulse.

Even without any of the fancy tricks they'd seen in the movies, even though they only stuck to simple things like relatively shallow dives and long turns, it was terrifying and dangerous and so, so **reckless** for a pair of ten year olds who'd never flown before to do.

It was so **worth it** as morning bled to afternoon and the sun warmed the wind from biting cold to just refreshingly chilly and they were still flying. It was worth it when they finally circled back to Deku's apartment hours and hours later, well past breakfast and easily past lunchtime, and bumbled to a clumsy landing on the roof that probably everyone and their grandmother could hear. It was **worth it** when Katsuki tumbled off Deku's back, every muscle in his body —many of which he hadn't known existed until then— screamingly stiff and so in pain that all he could do was flop onto the hot concrete of the apartment roof next to Deku and **laugh** at the sky that he had just flown through. That he had just **touched** with his bare hands.

It was even worth it when Inko found them a few minutes later and dragged them inside, spouting a tearful lecture that Katsuki couldn't make out but was probably filled with demands for them to leave a note next time —or never do it again— and dire warnings of groundings and calling Katsuki's parents so Deku and he could be lectured twice.

He looked over at Deku at some point in the lecture that was still going on even as Inko stuffed them with a large lunch to make up for their skipped breakfast and saw the same knowledge that beat in his heart reflected in his friend's massive, gummy smile.

They were doing that again. They were going to do it again and again for as long as Deku could fly and Katsuki could cling to Deku's back. They were going to keep reaching out and touching the sky. It was a promise.

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

* * *

 ** _._**

 ** _._**

 _He didn't know that the real reason Izuku smiled so broadly and promised to passionately with just his eyes was that Katsuki was_ ** _smiling_** _, well and truly smiling for the first time in years. Guiltless and free for the first time since Izuku had become a night fury and Izuku was willing to do_ ** _anything_** _to see that smile stay._

 _That smile was also the reason Inko's lecture trailed off and, after a very long talk with Mitsuki and Masaru, they pooled their money together and got the boys a joint present of a custom leather saddle and safety harness a few months later on the condition that Katsuki and Izuku never get_ ** _too_** _reckless with their flying or leave the perimeter of Musutafu even when in the air._

 _The promise to not be reckless lasted only as long as it took to be unsupervised in the air, but that was alright, Katsuki knew how to catch himself with his quirk until Izuku could catch him —which he always did, always did and always would—._

 **.**

 **.**

* * *

 **.**

 **.**

Years later, Hitoshi Shinsō would shyly admire his friends' expert acrobatics in the air and then stare in astonishment when they offered to teach him how to fly on Izuku's back too. He would put on the harness that Katsuki no longer needed and hardly ever wore and cling frantically to Katsuki's waist as his friends hurtled into the early evening sky for his first flight. He would quietly cry as he opened his eyes and reached out and touched the sky with the same reverent hands Katsuki had that first time years ago, spend hours being taught how to lean and shift with every wingbeat and then breathlessly curse his laughing friends when he sprawled on the ground beneath a now star-studded sky and **ached** with every fiber of his being. Swear to never be that dumb again.

At least until he could walk in a straight line without limping once more and his friends offered him another chance to fly and he all but threw himself into the safety harness so he could reach up and touch the sky and listen to the quiet again. And again. And again until he didn't need the safety harness either, just **trusted** his body and his friend to know what to do, trusted to be caught when he willingly slid off the saddle and plummeted toward the ground far-far-far below while Katsuki and Deku chased after him and laughed for joy.


	4. Chapter 3: Destiny Reforged

**Yo! I return with the next installment! And also news of an impending new story (I know, I know, I already have too many WIPs. I REGRET NOTHING). It's a favor for a friend mostly, but I figured I'd share it since it's progressing so nicely. It's a Horizon Zero Dawn/Final Fantasy XV crossover, so if either of those interest you maybe come take a look!**

 **Copyright Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia or any references made in this story. The only things I own are the plot and my interpretation of AU characters.**

* * *

 **Chapter Three: Destiny Reforged**

.

He had been in the area for week when it happened. A shortcut he should have known better than to take —did know better, but he was tired and impatient to get to his new house and hadn't wanted to take the long way around— and a group of kids with nothing better to do than to shake down the neighborhood newcomer for cash.

He eyed the boys without fear —he'd taken on worse when he was their age— and gave them a thin smile when they tried to intimidate him, "See here, boys, you have better things to be doing than wasting your lives getting criminal records-." He should have seen the punch coming, he **should have**. Even if the kid throwing it had a speed enhancing quirk, he was a pro, he should've been expecting it. But he'd underestimated them, forgotten how **helpless** he was now.

He lectured himself mentally in between gasps for air and gurgling coughs as the taste of copper soaked his mouth. The middle school teens took a collective step back, "Dude! We want his cash, not to kill him!"

The boy with the enhanced speed flailed, "I didn't hit him that hard! He's just weak or something!"

The third snorted, "Whatever, who cares. Just take the cash and the beer and let's go." He shifted to get up and the third teen kicked him in the ribs, sending another wave of copper into his mouth as he tried to wrestle down his instinct to grab the threat and throw-it-through-a-wall-.

" **Hey**!" A fourth voice, younger than the muggers, but edged with violence, thundered down the alley, "The **f*ck** do you think you're doing?"

The boys jumped in surprise and the one with enhanced speed bolted without waiting for the other two. The third one cursed, "You again! Why don't you f*ing mind your own business?"

Rapid footsteps and the crack of an explosion followed by a snarling, "Because I'm d*mn well **making it** my business." He opened his eyes and watched through with slightly watery vision as a shorter boy cannoned into the muggers, slamming his fists into their midriffs and limbs and then setting his fists on fire. The teens yelled and flailed and the third boy lashed out with tentacle arms that were quickly scorched and driven off by a miniature whirlwind of blond aggression. The second fired a tiny laser from his index fingers, then howled when his fingers were grabbed and twisted to the point of a sickening crack.

The two fled within seconds, yelling threats and curses the entire way. The blond —primary school age at most if he didn't miss his mark— spat contemptuously onto the pavement and flexed his hands a few times before he turned. Crouching down in front of him, the boy reached up and fiddled with something behind his right ear before he said, "Sh*t that's a lot of blood. You need an ambulance?"

He shook his head and sat up, already reaching for a handkerchief to wipe away the blood on his lips and chin —nothing he could do about the blood on his shirt until he got home—, "No, thank you. I'm alright."

Narrow red eyes conveyed disbelief, but the boy shrugged, "If you say so."

He smiled weakly, "I do." It wasn't like a hospital would be able to help anyway. He picked himself up slowly, making sure not to trigger another coughing fit, and when he turned around to check the state of his groceries, he found the blond boy already packing them back into the bags and hoisting them in his arms, "Ah, you don't have to do that-!"

He hadn't thought anyone would ever be able to level a deadpan glare so powerful, especially at such a young age, and yet he found himself pinned in place by burning red eyes, "Which way is your house?"

He gestured weakly out the alley, "Two blocks from here, blue house with the white trim-" and the blond was off, taking his groceries with him, "h-hey wait a minute!"

He was given a disdainful glance that turned threatening the moment he reached to reclaim his groceries, "I'm not letting the guy coughing up blood carry this sh*t. Just open the door when we get there."

"That really isn't necessary young man, I am fully capable of-."

"Will you shut the f*ck up and let me help already? I can f*ing tell you're in pain!"

Well. There wasn't much to say to that now was there? This boy apparently earnestly wanted to help him, a total stranger, even if his way of expressing that desire was incredibly rude. He couldn't stop the tiny smile on his face as he gave in and allowed the boy —who had managed to fight off teenagers several years his senior in defense of a stranger— to carry the groceries to his new house.

He opened the door when they arrived and directed the boy to set everything on the table. The boy went a step further and insisted on unloading everything and putting it away, even the beer.

"Young lad, you aren't old enough to touch those-."

"Who the f*ck cares and who's gonna tell? Now do you want these in the fridge or the cupboard?"

"…The fridge, please. Thank you."

Tasks done, the boy examined the kitchen with a critical eye and then gave him a five sentence lecture on either not taking shortcuts or carrying mugger deterrent —the boy pulled a can of pepper spray and a taser out of each pocket as an example and then pointedly put the pepper spray on the table with an expression that warned him to use it or else—. Lecture given, the boy nodded to himself and marched for the door without so much as a request for water for his efforts. He trailed after the boy, baffled —and rather touched— by the heavy-handed assistance. He couldn't help but joke softly as the boy put his sneakers back on and made to leave, "Do I at least get the **name** of my hero today?"

The boy went very, very still and pointedly didn't look at him for a long time. Then red eyes glanced shyly over his left shoulder, "Katsuki. Bakugo Katsuki."

He smiled down at the boy, "Yagi Toshinori. It was a pleasure to meet such a brave young man, Bakugo-kun. Are you sure there's nothing I can do to thank you for all your help?"

Red eyes shifted to glare at the floor, "Don't do stupid sh*t like that again. Kaa-san get's mad when I break the other kid's bones, even if they deserve it." A pause, a thoughtful glower at the door, "You're new here."

"I am, I just moved in a week ago. My doctor recommended somewhere quieter than the downtown area for my recovery." Before the boy could ask, Toshinori added, "I had a bad accident two years ago, I'm afraid I'm still recovering."

Bakugo-kun grunted and, after a slightly awkward pause, yanked open the door and stomped off down the driveway, "Bye. Stay out of sh*tty alleys that will get you killed."

Toshinori watched him go with a baffled smile. What a strange boy. To be so earnestly stubborn about helping someone in need, but to have such atrocious language and temperament he could have just as easily been mistaken for a mini villain in the making himself. He wondered if he'd see the boy again anytime soon. He'd have to see if he could coax the kid into accepting an ice cream as thanks. That confrontation could have ended very badly —especially since he wouldn't have been able to use his quirk without giving away his identity—.

Five days later Toshinori nearly choked on his own blood when he opened the door to investigate the loud thump noise he'd just heard and found a newspaper at his feet and a little blond bundle of goodwill, swearing, and aggression standing at the end of his driveway, a large leather bag slung over one shoulder. Once he'd recovered his breath, Toshinori made a cautious approach, "Ah, good morning, Bakugo-kun." He got a borderline-hateful blink in return that was far too much like certain pre-coffee heroes in the morning for it to not be a greeting. Toshinori ran a hand through his hair, "…Is there any reason you're standing at the end of my driveway?"

Another hateful blink, then a flat, "Where's your pepper spray." It wasn't even a question, just a demand delivered in a grumpy monotone.

Toshinori obediently fished out the item from his pocket, "I carry it with me whenever I leave the house. Do you want it back-?"

"No."

"…Alright then." He put the pepper spray back in his pocket and waited for the boy to explain why he was standing there. Neither of them moved for several long seconds before Toshinori politely cleared his throat, "Ah, was that everything, Bakugo-kun?" Dead silence. It was like trying to draw blood from a stone or get Aizawa to be sociable at any point before —or after— five in the evening. He waited several more seconds, receiving only a blank stare that somehow conveyed irritated swearing without ever twitching an eyebrow, "…Okay then. I'm just … going to go on my morning walk now."

He slowly set off down the street, hoping to put the strange encounter behind him. Five yards later, he turned to see what the periodic "swish, thump" sounds behind him were and realized he had a bodyguard following a few steps behind him. As he watched, the boy fished a newspaper out of his bag and threw it with obvious bad humor at the door of the house they were passing. The newspaper hit the door with roughly the speed of a professionally thrown baseball and made contact with enough force to sound like someone had just attacked with a small battering ram.

Toshinori blinked — _so that was the thump he'd heard earlier_ —, then kept walking with the assumption that the boy would turn off at the intersection and continue his paper-route elsewhere —he never seen Bakugo-kun on his morning walk before, so the boy was probably just a bit late getting started or something today—. Two intersections later and Toshinori turned around again in time to see a newspaper smack an unwary fellow right in the face when he opened his door at the exact wrong time. The man fell over from the force of it and Bakugo-kun raised his voice for the first time that morning, "You f*ing dead, Bald Geezer?"

The man who had been felled by a mach 3 newspaper sat up and shook the now-slightly-bloody bundle of papers at the boy, "F*ing watch your sh*tty language, young man! This neighborhood isn't a sh*tty pigsty!"

"F*ing learned it from you, Bald Geezer!"

"I can still tell your mother to take you over her knee you sh*tty brat!"

Someone the next house down flung open their living room window to bellow, "Will you two shut up? It's too early in the morning for your stupid-!" Another dead on meeting between face and newspaper.

The nice lady who always greeted Toshinori while watering her flowerbeds laughed aloud, "You deserved that!" Her attention shifted to the moody, apparently lethally armed youth trailing behind Toshinori, "Hello, Bakugo-kun. Where's Izu-kun today?"

"On our usual route. Teiji's sick, so I have to cover for him."

"Aw, poor Teiji-kun. I hope he gets better soon. Well, I won't keep you," she held out her hand expectantly and was given a newspaper without having to risk life and facial structure for it, then smiled at Toshinori, "good morning, Toshinori-san."

He smiled, "Good morning Reika-san."

Toshinori continued on his way, watching in baffled amusement as Bakugo-kun eventually moved to march beside him rather than behind, throwing newspapers at doors, walls, and the occasional unlucky face with the intent to kill. Toshinori could feel his eyebrows rising each time a newspaper left the boy's hands with a whip-crack of sound, "Do you always deliver your newspapers with so much … enthusiasm, Bakugo-kun?"

"…No." Whip-crack-thud.

The negative response was hardly convincing, but Toshinori gave him the benefit of the doubt, "You're angry that you had to take a different route today, then."

"No." Whip-crack-thud. Slightly more convincing, but not by much.

 _Talkative this one. A real master at conversation._ "Then why are you trying to knock people's doors down with a newspaper, if I might ask?"

Whip-crack-thud. Whip-crack-thud. Then, "Deku's not here. We usually share a route."

"Ah." Unhappy at being separated from his friend then. Still, "I don't think that's a very good reason to give people concussions with paper, Bakugo-kun."

A snort, "Then they should learn to f*ing duck."

"Language, Bakugo-kun." That got him the evil eye, but surprisingly no comment. Toshinori watched Bakugo-kun assault another few doors before he said, "…After your route, would you like me to … buy you an ice cream? Or a soda?" A questioning grunt and another door shuddered under the assault of a paper missile. Toshinori sighed and reminded himself that patience was everything, "As a thank you for the all your help the other day."

"No." Whip-crack- _crunch_. There was definitely a crack in that door now, and the paper was smoking slightly.

"But surely I can at least pay you back for the pepper-."

A rolled up newspaper was suddenly being held under his nose like the barrel of a lethal weapon, " **No**."

Toshinori held his hands up in surrender, "At least tell me why…?"

Bakugo-kun seemed to contemplate throwing the newspaper in his hands at Toshinori from point-blank range, then instead turned and abused another door with it. It took three more door assaults before, "I'm **not** a hero."

That … okay. That wasn't the answer Toshinori had been expecting at all. Not that he'd really known what to expect —he knew how to deal with kids as All Might, but not as skinny, sickly Toshinori—, but that had definitely not been it, "You saved me from being mugged. You checked whether I needed an ambulance, and you carried my heavy groceries to my house and put them away for me. I know that isn't flashy like what Pro Heroes do on the news, but that all sounds heroic to me."

He could see jaw muscles go tight, then forcibly relax. The next newspaper was definitely smoking —just like the palm that had thrown it— and the wall looked dented, "They still managed to hurt you before I got there."

"Oh, it wasn't that bad…" Not compared to the villains he'd faced over his career —up to and including the man who'd taken his lung and stomach from him—.

"Tell that to all the **f*ing blood all over** **d*mn ground-**." The last word came out strangled and the boy stopped short to breathe heavily. Toshinori felt alarmed concern zip through his veins as he recognized the beginning stages of a panic attack in the glazed eyes and harsh breathing. Before he could try to help however, Bakugo-kun's breathing evened out and his eyes unglazed. The boy stood on the sidewalk, knuckles white around the strap of his newspaper bag for what felt like a long time. Then he growled, "I'm not a hero. Heroes aren't **late**."

Toshinori took a bracing breath of his own as he tried to stow away the many memories of being just one second too late, one heartbeat too slow or one inch too far away to save someone. He dared to reach out and place a hand on the boy's shoulder, "Even heroes … even heroes can't be on time every time, Bakugo-kun." Bakugo-kun released one hand from the shoulder strap to clutch at his shirt just over his chest and his response was so soft —so tiny, so lost and weighed down by memory— that Toshinori almost didn't hear it.

"I know."

Bakugo-kun jerked his shoulder out from under Toshinori's hand and resumed throwing newspaper-missiles. If he'd looked back, he might have seen the world-weary, guilty look on Toshinori's face as the secret Pro Hero shuffled along behind and wondered who had failed the boy, and when, to make him go from being so loud and fearless to so quiet and scarred in the space of seconds.

Bakugo-kun's newspaper route, by happenstance or design, ended right next to the little cafe that had been introduced to him by his beloved predecessor Nana. The owner of the house ran the cafe on the bottom floor of her two-story home and Toshinori had taken a liking to sitting at one of the porch tables, drinking one of her berry smoothies —doctor's orders, he'd rather have coffee—, and munching on a small pile of scrambled eggs with ham before going about his day.

Toshinori went inside and the owner —an older woman named Avery— smiled and greeted him in her native tongue of Southern-accented English, "Toshi-boy! Yah're late, Ah was beginning ta worry 'bout ya. Yah didn' run inta trouble did'ja?"

Toshinori smiled at her, but was cut off from answering her when Bakugo stormed up to the counter and slapped his last newspaper down on it with a loud smack and huffed in accented English, "He's fine. Jus' walks slow as a d*mn snail."

He watched in baffled amusement as Avery promptly snatched up the newspaper and cracked Bakugo-kun over the head with it, "Watch your language around mah customers, brat! 'Specially, Toshi-boy! He's tha boy of mah good friend Nana, may she rest in peace, an' has got more manners in his little pinky than ya've got in your entire fool body!"

The boy rubbed his spiky hair and sneered at Avery as he switched back to Japanese, "Who the f*ck-" he ducked another newspaper swing, "cares about manners when he's got the common sense of a d*mn-" another rustle of weaponized paper as it was dodged, "drunk hamster?"

Avery paused in her swinging, scrutinized Toshinori's underweight form —which she knew was massively underweight and bedraggled, she'd known him from his high school years on even if she didn't know what had happened to leave him this way—, then tapped her chin with the paper in thought, "…Thah's true. He **does** have tha common sense of a drunk hamster."

Bakugo-kun nodded sagely, "I had to give him a can of pepper spray, moronic zombie was taking alley shortcuts without so much as an f*ing dog to protect him from the sh*tty muggers around here."

Well. That was a bit harsh, and Avery did **not** have to nod so agreeably with the mouthy eleven year old's assessment of his mental capabilities, "…I'm right here you know."

Avery shot him a look, "Ah can see thah. Yah go sit yourself down in your usual spot, Toshi-boy, Ah'll bring yah your usual?" Toshinori nodded and Avery barreled on, "Ah'll bring ya your usual and then ya can tell me about this muggin' Bakugo here stopped. As for yah," she turned to Bakugo-kun and switched back to Japanese, "truck don't show until tomorrow, so yah might as well-" the boy gave her a long, flat look and she sighed, "take tha trash down ta tha dumpsters for me. It'd be a great help not ta bend over like thah."

The boy nodded, hung his bag on a coat peg and disappeared into the back of the restaurant with the same semi-murderous look he always seemed to have. Toshinori waited until Avery had brought him his usual smoothie and eggs —by which point the boy had returned from trash duty and taken a dishrag to the empty tables without prompting— to ask, "Bakugo-kun seems a little … young to hold two jobs at once, doesn't he?"

Avery barked a quick laugh and sat down across from him, switching back to English to answer, "He don'. Ah'm just one o' tha people he likes ta mother on a regular basis." She propped her chin on her hand, "Ya wouldn' know 'cause ya only just moved here, but Bakugo's somethin' of tha neighborhood watchdog. He may have tha mouth of a sailor on 'im, but his heart's in tha right place." She waited until the boy had moved farther away and lowered her voice, "He used ta be a brat. I mean, he's still a brat, but he was on a fast track ta being a violent little-" she shook her head and didn't finish that thought, "Anywho. When he an' Izuku were seven, they got caught up in a villain attack. A Pro Hero nailed tha perp, bu' not afore Izuku took a bad hit right in front of Bakugo. Poor kid got hospitalized an' well, Izuku copes, an' he's happy again, but things were never … quite the same."

She paused in her story to set Bakugo to another chore at the boy's grouchy behest, "Bakugo took it pretty hard, and after thah he … well, he's still as loud an' rude as ever, but he ain't cruel no more. He straightened himself up. Started helping out tha other kids at school first, drivin' off bullies and the like. Then he started volunteering around tha neighborhood, doing chores for tha older people 'round here, helpin' out at tha animal shelter-."

"Isn't he too young for that?"

Avery shrugged, "He's better at carin' for tha animals than some o' tha professionals. He finds 'em an' brings 'em ta tha shelter and some o' tha caretakers call him in ta deal with tha more abused animals. He's got a real gentle touch with 'em, so everyone turns a blind eye ta his age. Anywho. He an' Izuku are thah little neighborhood heroes now. They check up on everyone, help out wherever they can." She smiled fondly, "Honestly, they got more heroism between 'em than most any o' tha Pro's runnin' round nowadays." She leaned back and shook her head, "They're gonna shake tha world someday, Toshi-boy. Just like Nana used ta. Mark mah words."

Toshinori hummed around his smoothie, "Where is Izuku-kun now, do you know?" He was interested to see the other half of the "neighborhood heroes" now. See how the boy compared to the door-denting Bakugo-kun —and perhaps see what the villain attack had done, that left such a strong impression without crippling the poor boy—.

Avery shrugged, "Oh, Ah expect he'll come 'round soon. Hard ta separate those two nowadays, it's like they're glued ta tha hip." A pair of customers came up the porch and Avery hauled herself out of the chair to tend to them. Toshinori lingered at his table, watching as the two men greeted Bakugo-kun, then chuckled when all they got was a vague snarl in response from the boy now busily mopping the floor despite Avery's efforts to make him sit down and accept a small pastry as a reward.

More customers drifted in as the morning shifted from "far too early" for most people to "time for some good coffee and pancakes". Bakugo-kun hovered to and fro, moving from mopping to helping serve with a stubborn dedication Toshinori hadn't thought a boy his age capable of showing for any kind of chore. Let alone voluntary ones.

His aggressive assistance only stopped when a bright animal trill and the telltale rustle of leather membrane heralded a new arrival. Toshinori couldn't help but stare as an honest to goodness **night fury** roughly the size of a pony dropped onto the lawn, dressed in baggy pants with a wide hole cut out of the back to accommodate the tail and a harness style newspaper bag strapped across his chest. The dragon waggled his ears cheerfully and a tiny light flashed from the bulky thought-to-speech vocoder clamped around his neck, "Good. Morning. Kacchan! Avery-san! Everyone!" The voice from the collar was flat and monotone —a sign of a cheap brand, the high quality ones could sound almost exactly like a regular person's voice—, only the gleeful body language of the owner and the spike in volume from the collar conveying the happy mood of the speaker.

Bakugo-kun hurtled across the lawn in an instant, colliding with the night fury —and seriously, how had the boy gotten a quirk that was identical to a famous fictional **dragon**?— in something that Toshinori tentatively assumed was supposed to be a hug. Even though it looked far more like an attempted wrestler's tackle. The night fury —presumably the boy Avery had called Izuku?— wrapped his wings and paws around Bakugo-kun with a hiccuping laugh and a stilted, "Kacchan. Hi! Sorry. I'm. Late. Tanaka-san. Needed. Help. With. His. Dog. Again."

Bakugo-kun pulled away from the other boy and began undoing the straps holding the leather bag in place, "Stupid old man. He knows that dog is too f*ing dumb to learn to obey. He should just keep her on a cable already so she doesn't hurt herself going after cars or something."

The two continued to chat as the bag came free. Bakugo-kun slung it carelessly on the peg next to his own bag, then smacked the dragon's shoulder and stomped toward Toshinori's table. The dragon —boy? Toshinori was mostly sure that this had to be Izuku— followed obediently behind, ear flaps pricking in curiosity as Bakugo-kun came to a stop at the table. Toshinori offered a slightly nervous smile, "Hello there. You must be Bakugo-kun's friend. My name is Yagi Toshinori."

A black scaled head that refracted deep green in the sunlight dipped in assent, "Yes. Hello. I. Am. Midoriya. Izuku. It. Is. Nice. To. Meet. You. Yagi-san."

"You can call me Toshinori. It's very nice to meet you Midoriya-kun."

Bakugo-kun straightened up, red eyes deadly serious as he laid a hand on his friend's scaly shoulder, "Deku here is going to be the next Number One Hero. Even better than All Might."

Toshinori had to sputter into a napkin at that, startled that the grouchy child would so fearlessly tout his friend as a future best hero when he himself seemed so adverse to the idea that he was heroic. Midoriya-kun's head twisted to eye Bakugo-kun with a wordless noise of protest that was followed by, "No! Kacchan. Is. A. Better. Hero. Than. Me!" Bright green eyes, like fresh grass in the sunshine, pinned Toshinori to his seat, "Kacchan's. Going. To. Be. Number. One. Someday. Just. Watch!"

Toshinori could only watch in helpless confusion as Bakugo-kun's expression turned dark, "I ain't a hero, Deku. You're a f*ckton better than me."

"No. You. Are! You. Are. A. Hero!"

"No, I'm not! Now shuddup and accept the praise, Deku! You're gonna be the best Pro Hero there ever was if I have to kick your *ss and make you!"

Midoriya-kun's ears and wings drooped into a body-sized deadpan, "That's. Counterintuitive. Kacchan."

Human palms crackled with sparks, "Do I **f*ing look like I care**?"

Toshinori felt he should interrupt before the argument turned violent —even if Bakugo-kun was no longer armed with newspapers, he still looked like he could make quite a mess of Avery's establishment if he got physical—, "Boys!" Both heads swiveled to stare at him and he held up placating hands, "Can't you both just be the best Pro Heroes you can be? See which one of you becomes the next Number One in honest competition?"

They stared at him like he was crazy and pointed at the other with either a claw or finger.

"But he's the f*ing hero around here!"

"Kacchan. Is. The. Best. Hero!"

They resumed glaring at each other and Toshinori scrambled for how to stop the impending fight before Avery noticed and had to break it up herself, "W-wait!" They glanced at him again, "So, the problem here isn't that you think you are each the best, but that you both believe the other is better suited to be Number One?" They nodded slowly and Toshinori tried not to facepalm. _Well, that's definitely a new one._ Most heroes, even veteran pros, got into arguments over how **they** were obviously better than the other hero. This was the other way around and he wasn't sure how to solve that.

In his scramble to say something, anything, that might keep Bakugo-kun's short temper from snapping —and who knew what damage Midoriya-kun could wreak if he lost his temper too—, Toshinori blurted out the first thing that came to mind when he scrounged for something to say to bickering children, "C-can't you just share?"

A moment later, he realized the stupidity of his statement. The title of Number One was meant for just that. One person. No one had ever tied for the title, and certainly two young boys would never agree to share such glory even if they could-.

Except the two were staring at each other like they had just witnessed some kind of holy revelation.

Midoriya-kun broke the awed silence first with a serious flick of his ears, "I. Will. Be. The. Number. One. Hero. If. You. Will."

Bakugo-kun bared his teeth, looking far more feral than his dragon friend, "If that's what it takes to see you at the f*ing top, then bring it on."

They nodded sharply and exchanged a high five to seal the sudden deal, gazes far too solemn for children their age. Toshinori just sat there and gaped quietly at the two children who had gone against all convention and decided they were going to **share** the title of Number One like it was some kind of cake to be sliced up evenly. Midoriya-kun then flopped over onto Bakugo-kun in an enthusiastic hug and the serious moment dissolved into wheezing laughter —from Midoriya-kun— and inventive cursing —from Bakugo-kun—. The cursing, for all its creativity, didn't hide Bakugo-kun's smile as he squirmed out from under his larger friend … and Toshinori didn't have the heart to point out the impossibility of their new plan.

Of course, he would only learn later that "impossible" to them just meant "work harder".

* * *

 **An alternate title for this chapter could have been: In Which Toshinori Accidentally Dooms the Hero Industry to A Glorious (and** **Explody) Reformation Because of His Incorrect Use of a Parental Platitude. XD**

 **Also! I have a tumblr! Come drop me (or the characters in my stories, either OC or not) an ask! Or something. (Tumblr usage beyond basic posts, likes, and reblogs is still something of a mystery to me so, eh).** secret -engima .tumblr. com **(just put it back together).**


	5. AU Interlude:Staircases (go down, down-)

**Update! Not an "actual chapter" but rather an AU interlude. Next chap will be a normal chapter, for now, enjoy this small thing that ate my brain!**

 **AU Interlude: Staircases _(go down, down, down)_**

It wasn't like they meant it to happen. There was no grand moment where their hearts broke and turned black, no blind leap of hatred, no declaration to become what they did. If the path to hell was paved with good intentions, the path to villainy was inlaid with sloping steps that guided the disillusioned, heart-sick foot ever downward into darkness. Yet, even though it was not their intent, once they got there they simply … didn't choose to leave. The stairs were there, and the long climb was possible if difficult. But, well.

By then they trusted the monsters in the shadows more than the false idols that shown with neon lights and promised things no human could give.

.

* * *

.

For Katsuki and Deku, despite what others might have assumed, it didn't start with Deku's transformation. It didn't begin in that eternal moment of blood and screaming and pain, of All Might crashing down from on high with his smiles and power too late to actually save the day.

No. The first step down the dark staircase began with anger and kindness and eyes turned away from the things they didn't want to see.

It started when they were ten, with a walk in the park and a little girl in the river.

Deku heard it first, keen night fury ears honing in on the sounds of laughter and distress like a beacon. He ran for it with barely a word and Katsuki fell in step. They were used to driving off bullies now, though Katsuki would have thought they'd beaten it into the idiots' heads by now that this kind of cr*p was no longer tolerated in the neighborhood.

As they got closer and Katsuki heard it too, a part of his mind registered that while the cruel laughter was definitely old enough to be bullies —older than him, upper middle school or even high school?— the wails for help were definitely **not**.

They burst onto the grassy bank of the park river, at the only place it was actually deep enough to swim. There were four of them, high schoolers who were holding cans of beer they were too young to have. He knew who they were, had seen them around enough times to know their names and usual hangouts. They were pointing and laughing, jeering and calling like they were watching some great sport. No talk of revenge, no talk of getting even or showing someone their place, just laughter, like they were watching the funniest thing in the world.

His eyes turned to the river. There was a little girl. Maybe seven or eight, perched on a tiny rock just above the current, a wet stuffed toy under one arm and cheeks flooded with tears as she tried not to overbalance and fall in. "Please!" She sobbed as wet gossamer wings flapped weakly in an effort for balance, "I c-can't! I c-can't swim! I **can't swim** , **p-please-**!" She slipped and hit the water. Katsuki kicked off his shoes and hit the water a moment later, _Never Again, Never Again_ spinning endlessly through his mind as he swam for the girl being swept downriver. Deku ran along the bank after them until Katsuki emerged from the water with the girl in one arm and his own limbs struggling to keep them afloat while the child cried and flailed. Katsuki's world cycled between desperate water treading and the sight of the sky as the girl screamed in his ear to clinging to his shortening breath as the water and the girl's struggles pulled them under again and again.

Deku kept running until the little footbridge that crossed the deepest part of the river, then he ran to its middle and dropped his tail over the side for Katsuki to grab onto with a white-knuckled hand. Deku jumped to the bank and dragged them to shore, where Katsuki coughed and heaved and the girl curled gratefully into Deku's space-heater scales as she sobbed.

The four teens hadn't even called the police or an ambulance. They just ambled after them, still laughing and cheerfully commenting on the successful rescue of a brat by other brats, either too drunk to realize the danger or just drunk enough —apathetic enough— to not care since nobody had died from it.

Katsuki saw red, and soaking wet or not —years younger than them or not—, his explosions were still bright and his punches still tooth-loosening. Deku never left the girl's side, just shielded her with his wings as he spat fireballs the size of a man's fist at the teens, knocking them over and cracking ribs even as their clothes smoldered with fire.

Someone heard the teens screaming. Someone called the police and ambulance then, and the only thing Katsuki really remembered of being dragged down to the station was his father and Inko apologizing for their children's behavior and a rookie police officer muttering, "Breaking arms at ten. Sheesh, those parents better be careful or they're going to have villains on their hands before those kids hit high school."

He couldn't remember anyone listening to the little girl when she tried to tell her mom that the drunk teens had thrown her stuffed toy onto the rock in the river, then laughed when she struggled to get it and ended up getting her wings too wet to fly to safety. He didn't hear of the teens getting any consequences for their "drunken prank" beyond a reprimand for underage drinking and a fine for civilian endangerment. They hadn't used their quirks after all, and the girl hadn't gotten seriously hurt, and there were **real** villains to deal with and process.

He spent his time being grounded brooding at his bedroom window and staring at his hands. Hands that hurt those four boys.

Hands that had saved a little girl.

Except … except nobody seemed to care about that part, did they? Because he wasn't a pro hero. Because he'd used his quirk illegally to hurt someone. So what did it matter that he'd **saved a life** in the process? That the people he'd hurt had almost **murdered** a little girl by bullying her and throwing away her toy and watching as she almost **drowned**?

After that, Katsuki opened his eyes and watched the world more closely. His faith in heroes had already been deeply fractured, if not broken, but now … now he looked and saw that he seemed to be the only one. That everyone else believed in heroes so deeply that it wasn't even a question of whether or not to help someone in need they saw as they passed by. They just didn't. Because a pro hero would come along and fix it, so why bother putting in the effort? Even if the effort was a phone call, or few kind words and some company. Things that didn't even need quirks to solve were left alone as the business of "professionals".

The old woman at the train station who was lost because of her memory problems. The boys who got stuck in a tree playing with their quirks. The dog walker who was almost mugged on his way home from walking the neighborhood dogs. The woman with a cat quirk who was being chased by a drunken pervert who wanted a good time. The harried store manager trying to stop an instant villain who was trying to possess ATMs for the money and was weak to bright flashes of light. Nobody seemed to notice beyond a disapproving tsk and a complaint about pro heroes being late.

Deku and Katsuki helped them all, and with each time they did and were stared at in confusion or **lectured for it** —don't use your quirk to hurt people, even if they were taking a knife to the dog walker's arm, don't run off the pervert who was after a woman because he had a cat fetish, don't use your quirk in public I don't care that it was just a few sparkles to scare off a villain from stealing several thousand yen—, the sense of anger in Katsuki's chest settled deeper.

People didn't care. Heroes didn't care —didn't exist beyond publicity stunts and the big villain attacks that would get them noticed—. Heroes were an excuse to turn the head and walk away —like people looked away when Deku fumbled walking on four legs, or had run and not bothered to grab Katsuki's wrist and pull him, a child, to safety away from the villain all those years ago—.

Then came the day, not long after Izuku had turned thirteen, that Katsuki and Deku intervened in a bad situation and everything went wrong. It had been drunks again, seven of them who'd surrounded a victim and started gearing up for a "good time". Deku had barreled in while Katsuki called the police before joining the fray and tried to herd the victim away. The drunks ended up in the emergency room —wasn't his fault, one of them had had a laser quirk and sucky aim and had knocked down an entire fire escape on their heads— and Katsuki and Deku ended up in the police precinct to be put into their records as juvenile **villains**.

It was the second time Katsuki spent the entire police visit in a stunned sort of silence, listening to his parents apologize and lecture by turns, robotically obeying the officer who took his picture and a record of his quirk and added it to their files.

"Another incident like this and they will have to be charged," warned the officer as Inko cried and Deku stayed oddly still.

"It's so sad to see kids this young becoming villains," murmured another as he took Katsuki's fingerprints and Deku's paw print.

"You should take them to counseling, it works wonders on kids with overly violent tendencies, it might save their lives," advised a kindly detective as he passed by.

"We'll be seeing them in prison sometime in the next five years, mark my words," muttered a sour typist with floppy dog ears.

"What did you expect with quirks like those," muttered another officer to the dog-eared typist, "it's a miracle the kids haven't gone into arson yet, but I doubt it'll last, just look at them, they've got villain written all over them."

Criminal. _We just wanted to help someone,_ he tried to say. Nobody listened.

Inevitable with that quirk. _I only used my quirk after one of them tried to_ ** _eat me_** _with_ ** _his_** _quirk,_ was the protest that got stuck in his throat.

Unstable. _We were just trying to help, we couldn't just look away,_ he could see the plea in Deku's eyes as Inko cried and cried over her son, begged him to stop this, stop his path to being a criminal.

Violent. _They were trying to_ ** _rape that person_** _,_ Katsuki wanted to scream, but for once, the tongue that had always blurted whatever he thought stayed immobile and heavy in his mouth.

Villain. _We couldn't just_ ** _stand there_** _and let them do that, we couldn't just_ ** _walk away_** _, how does that make us evil?_ Burned the thoughts much later, after they had left the station and been grounded to their respective homes by angry, disappointed parents.

Should have waited for a pro hero to take care of it. _Like how a pro hero saved me?_ ** _Saved Deku_** _?_ Katsuki screamed into his pillow, threw his school books across the room in an effort to restrain the blind fury that finally snapped free of shock's restraint. He paced his room for hours that night, seething and clenching back screams he knew would only convince his parents even further of his need for "counseling". He brooded through classes, watched as even those who he and Deku had spent years defending from bullies shied away from them like they were diseased and loudly whispered rumors that spiraled out of control —by the end of the day the school thought they'd killed someone in an unprovoked attack and there was no mention of the victim they'd saved—.

All through the day, the nasty thoughts spiraled down, the anger bubbled hotter, and the whispers of helpless outrage and "what was I supposed to f*ing do?" grew and grew. He overheard a teacher say that it was such a pity, as Katsuki and Deku could have grown up to be such good heroes and Katsuki was suspended for snapping and screaming at the woman that there **was no such thing as heroes** and **they'd just been trying to help d*mnit**.

Cue another lecture, this time with his mother —his strong, fierce, indomitable mother— holding back tears. More grounding, more promises of counseling and a muffled discussion his parents thought he didn't hear that was spent asking each other where they went wrong raising him.

 _You didn't,_ he wanted to say, _there's nothing wrong with me. There's something wrong with the world._ A world where you needed a license to help someone. Where you needed an agency and a fancy costume just to help a lost old woman, or boys out of a tree, or a man being mugged, or to **save someone from being violated**. A world where saving people made you a **villain**.

In another world, the situation didn't get so out of hand. In another world, Katsuki had already helped a certain secret pro hero without knowing it and thus gained an anchor, a voice of reason that looked on his reckless actions and whispered "I'm so proud of your heart, but you need restraint so people understand your intent as well as your actions". In another world, he and Izuku had already decided to become the top heroes and reform the system from the inside. In another world, Katsuki had more than one example of a selfless person. Had seen proof that there were other people in the world who **cared** even when they weren't in a costume or being paid to save the day, and decided that, just maybe, he could learn to be more like them rather than give in to his base instinct of "hit it till the problem goes away or repents".

But in this world there had been no fateful encounter with a bony hero in disguise, because the bony hero had chosen to move to a different neighborhood. In this world there was no Toshinori to offer an unbiased opinion mixed with praise and rebuke and advice in equal measures. In this world there was no example of selfless caring other than Deku, who was just as condemned as Katsuki was.

In this world, Katsuki paused in his pacing at midnight and rolled over one treacherous, bitter thought in his head. If heroes didn't really exist —not without being paid, not without being too late when it mattered most— and being a good citizen meant standing by and watching as others suffered and cried and children twisted in on broken bodies and pools of blood for the sake of friends…

Then maybe it was better to be a villain after all.

If saving people without a license made you a villain, then why the h*ll shouldn't he **be a villain**? If the choices before him were to stop and turn a blind eye, or keep going and be labeled the scum of the earth … well.

When the h*ll had he ever cared about the opinions of side characters anyway?

 _A conversation, broken and whispered on the school rooftop and silent, hard gazes shared between the boy who had no faith in heroes and the boy who was dragon because of the fallacy of humans. A decision made._

 _Tap, tap, tap, sounded the echoes of those first steps down the staircase where the darkness waited, hungry and watchful._


End file.
